SHOUT OUT!

Say hello to Joan Johnson or as I like to call her... Joanski
How to begin describing this beautiful girl who has changed my life while being here. Well, I can start off by saying we are two pods in a pea. That's right, I said it, we are better than two peas in a pod. From the time that we started facebook stalking each other to living together in the Holy Land we have become instant friends. She amazes me everyday with her enthusiasm to learn, to explore the city, and just soak in everything and everyone around her. Literally, everyone is drawn to this girl and its because of how amazing she is. She is the best person to talk to when you are down because she can make you laugh instantly. She has the best facial expressions and you just wonder how someones face could do such things. Not only are people drawn to her for those reasons, but she has such a strong and amazing testimony. She is able to reflect everything back to her life and be able to learn from it on the dot. Super jealous of that quality of her because it takes me 100 times of being knocked on the head to learn. Simply enough...Joanski is da BOMB . COM!

Long time no talk

Hello dear friends,
Let me just start off by saying I'm sorry that I suck at writing in my blog regularly. I hope most of you are friends with me on facebook and have been able to see some of the pictures I (and many others) have taken since I've been here. If not, you'll just have to wait for me to come home because for some reason the blog takes 100 years to upload photos. Another reason I"m so awful at this is quite honestly I'd rather be playing in the Old City or hanging out with the people here than write on a blog. Sorry, but that's the truth. I'm sure if you lived here you would feel the same ha ha, but just know that I think of you often and how I wish that I could have you all in my pockets wherever I go.
These past couple of weeks have been crazy with mid-terms, fields trips, playing in the city, and lack of sleep. We all have survived finals...kinda...it has gotten to the point where all of our brains are about to explode from all of the information that is going inside them 24 hrs a day. Right now I can't really recall anything, but I'm sure after hours of pounding it into my head I will be a master of everything I'm learning. Most importantly though are the field trips we have been going on. This past week we went on two AMAZING field trips. 1) The Shfelah (not Shephelah) trip. In the Bible it is spelled as Shephelah, but when you read it that way you pronounce it totally wrong. In order for us to remember how to say it our amazing professor, Bro.Chadwick, made up a spiffy little song. I'll make sure to put it up soon so all of you can enjoy it. During this field trip we were able to go to the ancient cities that were fortified by Rehoboam, son of Solomon, during his reign. The cities we went to were Gath (where Goliath is from!), Beth-Shemesh (story of Samson), Marihah, Azekah, and Lachish; we went to other places but there are foggy in my memory because it was an all day field trip from 7am-6pm, so my mind was mush by the end of the day. Anywho, my favorite was Gath because that is the site where Bro. Chadwick excavates every summer during the month of July. It was an awesome experience to be there where he works and see everything that he has excavated himself! From there we were able to see, or know the direction of, the five major Philistine cities during the Iron Age I/II periods, and see where David stayed for a while when Saul was out to get him. All in all, the day was absolutely amazing and probably one of my favorite field trips thus far.
The next field trip we went on was to the City of David. LOVE LOVE LOVE. The city is right outside my front door, so we took a nice little 15 min walk to the city, which is right outside the modern city walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. There we were able to see where the walls that surrounded the City of David were, built during the time of Melchezidek & Abraham, identify the millo, where David's palace would be, and we got to go through Hezekiah's tunnel...AMAZING! This tunnel was able to provide the people that lived in the city millions of gallons of water everyday. That's right, I was walking through an ancient spring people. By the way, walking through it we needed to have flashlights because if we didn't it was pitch black. Another thing, if you are tall, like myself, you were hunched 80% of the time. This tunnel led out to the pool of Siloam, which in the New Testament is the same pool that Christ healed the man that was born blind. Crazy huh?
Everyday I am just in awe at how amazing this place is and that I'm actually living here. It just reassures me everyday that the Bible is real. The people, places, and history behind everything is real. If you have any doubt that the Bible isn't real than you haven't studied it thoroughly enough. The written word and the archaeology alone will just show how real the book is. Well, I'll get off my soap box now. Enjoy the posts that I have and the pictures on facebook. Love ya'll!

Gobble Gobble Gobble

My Dear Friends,

Can I just say that I'm sorry for not being the best blogger in the world? Well, I'm sorry. I was supposed to blog about this amazing trip to Turkey like...2 weeks ago, so bear with me as I try to remember all of the craziness that went on. However, I could sum up this experience in a few shorts words: Mosques, green hills, gross food, beautiful lamps, long bus rides, New Testament stories, and bonding time.

I kept a pretty good journal about this trip, so I'll give you a fun high lights of the trip. We left on May 15, 2011(Sunday), from the Ben Gurion airport. It was a nice 2 hr flight to Istanbul, which is beautiful! You know how in Utah you can see steeples everywhere? Well, in Istanbul,Turkey in general, there are mosques everywhere! The culture is rich, the people are crazy, and the food was gross, but oh well, the itself to me at that moment was beautiful. In Istanbul we stayed in the Cartoon Hotel, which was super sketch, and Alise (my roomie) and I got shafted with the yuckiest room. In Istanbul we went to the Trokopi Palace, Blue Mosque, and the Basilica Sistern. Later that night, our tour guide Fati (who was a super creep), took us to a place where they sold the best baklava in the world. Not gonna lie, it was dang good. It was so good that I bought a whole box full and ate half of it that night. Hmmmhmm bak.

From Istanbul we made our way down to Troy aka Troas, crossing the plains of Turkey for 4 hrs straight and then took a ferry to where the legendary Trojan War happened. We were able to play in the Trojan Horse (replica of course), walk around the ancient walls, and reenact parts from the Iliad in the theater there. A fun thing a few of us did was help out B.J (Bro. Muhlestein's son) with a movie he is making about the Iliad where we had to pretend we were the Greeks in the Trojan horse. When we left Troy we made our way to Canaakale, where we stayed the night in a sweet hotel near a harbor (i forgot the body of water we were next to please forgive me).

In the morning we made our way to Assos,where we took some sweet pictures at the temple of Athena, then we drove to Pergamous where we stopped on the side of the road to make a stop and jump into the Aegean, and then like 5 hrs later we made it to Pergamous which is considered to be the place of Satan's seat in the New Testament. After playing around in Pergamous we drove another 2 hrs to the land of Ephesus, where we stayed in a sweet hotel on the beach.

The next day we went to the ancient city of Ephesus. This place was amazinggggg. If none of you know, Ephesus is where Paul lived at for 3 years, preached the gospel to the people, wrote many epistles, and made great friends. John the Beloved lived there as well where he wrote the gospel of John, and his 3 epistles. The theater in Ephesus was also the place where the people were ranting against Paul's apostles and yelled, " great is the power of Diana." Then we traveled to Miletus, where Paul held a regional conference for the saints before he went back to Jerusalem. It was beautiful there! Poppies everywhere, ancient temples, and cute little puppies. After that we went to a sweet hotel in the middle of no where, which was surprisingly nice. There was a mud pool, 2 big pools, work out space, etc etc...

Our next adventure was to the city of Bursa, where we traveled 4 hrs to get there, saw about 6 of the churches mentioned in the new testament,have a very spiritual sacrament meeting, explored the Bazaars, and had yucky goat ice cream. In the morning we went to the 5th biggest mosque in the world and then made our way to Istanbul, which was another 2 1/2 hr trip on bus, and then a 20 min ferry ride. Once we got back to Istanbul we went to the Hagia Sofia and we were able to shop a little bit. I bought a beautiful mosaic lamp, a beautiful purse, and a sweet Turkey shirt. After dinner that night we chilled in the airport for a little bit and flew to Israel in the middle of the night. We were finally able to get back to the Jerusalem Center by 3 am...crazy week I know.

All in all, I loved my Turkey adventure. It was a time to come closer to the greatest missionaries of the Church, Paul and John. I was able to see where they traveled and understand the deeper meaning of the words in the New Testament. The days seemed to have blurred together, but I will always cherish the memories I spent at all of the sites where Paul stayed and preached the word of God. If I had the chance I would have stayed longer. However, I will make it a goal to go back later in life. I love being in a place where I can see first hand the experiences the ancient prophets and apostles went through. I hope one day all of you can have that same experience.

Here are some pictures from Turkey for your enjoyment...

Unfortunate Events

So, since I have been in the Holy Land I have gotten pooped on by a bird aka "Holy Shiz", had my sunglasses stolen from a little local boy in Jericho, and got my foot burned by a cigarette.

Story Time: Sunglasses
So, there we were, walking around the ruins of Herod's Palace in Jericho, and I see these cute little children that live near the ruins. I go to get a picture with them because they are so darn cute, and this little boy is just looking at me and wanting a high 5. I smack his hand and then he looks and smiles and sees my wicked cool sunglasses. He points at them, to me signifying that he wanted to see them, so I take them off and hold them in my hands. I was thinking he was just going to look at them, but no. This little boy ups and snatches them right from my hands, puts them on his head, and runs away laughing.
I was standing there shocked, and frozen because I didn't know what to do. In America I would just run after the child and get my glasses back, but I didn't know the protocol there in Jericho. So, I walk to Bro. Muhlestein with my head held down, telling him how the little boy took my glasses. I had already come to the realization that I would never get them back until Bro. Muhlestein called George (George was the security guard who was hanging with us for the day). George was the hero of the day. He's a little man, but full of fire. He walked over looking all big and angry, yelled something in arabic, and the dad came out with my sunglasses.
SUCCESS! George was my hero, and I got my sunglasses back.

Story Time: Cigarette
This story isn't as exciting, but it happened in the same exact spot as the bird spot incident. So, I was innocently walking with a group of friends to the Old City to look for a sweatshirt for our upcoming trip to Turkey (leaving today). As we were walking I feel something get flipped up into my sandal. At first, I thought it was a rock and I was just going to shack it out, but then it started to burn. Soon to feel a piercing burn, I bend over and freak out trying to get this crazy thing out of my shoe. I finally found the source...a cigarette. I now have a nice little burn on the top of my foot, and patiently await for my next incident.

Now, I'm sitting here waiting to go to Turkey for a week. Not gonna lie, I'm way excited. We will be there for a week exploring the same routes that Paul took when proselyting after the time of Christ. We fly into Istanbul, then go to Canakkle, then Behramkale, making our to Ephesus, Hierspolis, Bursa, and then making our way back to Istanbul. I'm pretty sure we will be going to other cities and loads of ruins/famous biblical sites, but I'll have to do a special blog just for Turkey. PEACE!

Holy Shiz

Yeah, that's right, I said it...Holy Shiz
Once upon a time I was walking to the Old City with some friends to get out of the center and have some fun. As we were walking down Mt. Scopus, I feel something drop on my head. I think to myself," hmmm, I sure hope a bird didn't poop on my head." Sure 'nuff, I lifted my hand to my head, patted my hair, and found grossness on my head. So, because the bird was in Jerusalem I thought of it as a holy bird, therefore, I had Holy Shiz on my head.
Gotta love the wildlife.

SHALOM!

Holy Moly Guacamole!
Last night we were able to invite the sabbath day with the Jews up at the Western Wall in the Old City. To begin our evening a bunch of us just walked around the Old City, exploring and finding our ways around. We wanted to go to the Citadel of David and the Rampart Walk (you can walk on the actual walls), but they were both closed. Suck I know. However, on our way to the Western Wall we ran into about 50 Israeli soldiers that were dancing and playing games. They were having such a great time that they invited us to join in. Amazing! We followed them all the way to the Wall and it was just amazing. Eventually we were surrounded by about 200 soldiers dancing, singling, yelling etc and it was awesome.
When we got to the wall I had to deliver a pray. Ms. Spitalneck (don't hate me for spelling your name wrong) told me that there was a tradition that whoever delivered the note receives good luck. It was so crazy trying to get down to the wall though because there were hundreds of woman dancing, singing, and praying all the way down. When I finally put it in I walked over to a group of girls that were dancing around in circles singing and laughing and they just took my hand and brought me in. It's amazing how the people here have so much joy and are so excited to invite the Sabbath. I was lucky enough to meet some girls that were there studying in Jerusalem for a year during their "gap" year between high school and college. They had already been there 8 months! They take so much pride in their faith and are so dedicated to everything they do.
I've only been here for about 2 weeks and my perspective on the Jewish faith and their lifestyle has changed so much. I've learned a lot about myself and how I can change just by being around them. Along with the Palestinians that are here, I've learned that we need to enjoy life more. Americans suck at just letting go and having fun. Yeah, we need to work out to make a living, but give yourself a break from time to time and enjoy the blessings that you have. Laugh a little and love more, and DANCE! SHALOM!

So Much Knowledge.

Can I just tell you that I am so blessed to be in Jerusalem at this time. Wanna know why? I have the best teachers in the world. They are the top people in their fields of study and are just so enthusiastic about everything and every where we go. It's insane how much information they have in their minds!

The reason I bring this up is because today we had our first field trip today! We went to Saul's Palace, Nabi Samwill or Prophet Samuel, the Augusta Victoria Tower, and many look out places where we were able to see the City of Bethlehem, City of David, City of Bethany and WAY more. Everything that I have read from the scriptures has just been coming alive just in the past few days. Especially today when we were driving on the " Road of the Ancient Prophets," which is the road that Abraham traveled on through Jerusalem to get to Hebron. CRAZY! I have been able to see the places of where the great battle with the prophet Joshua happened when the Lord made the Sun and Moon stop, so that the Israelites could defeat their enemies. So much history, religion, geography and culture. I LOVE IT.

It has only been our first trip! You know how scientists tell us that we only use like 8% brain capacity? I feel like that after these 3 1/2 months I'll be using like 25% brain capacity ha ha. The classes seem super hard, but the teachers are absolutely amazing and I know that I'll gain SO much knowledge. I strongly recommend to anyone that if they have the chance to come to Jerusalem and be able to study or visit the sites, DO IT. I have only been here for 3 days and it has already changed my life.